Oscar Owen shares three amazing pen magic tricks that are easy to learn and visually stunning. Practice in front of a mirror to master the vanish, production, and shrink illusions.

Many magic effects exploit these cognitive shortcuts in humans, and comparing how well these same tricks work on other species may reveal something about how their minds operate.

What misdirections, memory and other neuroscience tricks have to do with magic.

Do magic tricks work on monkeys? Only if they have opposable thumbs like us. Psychologists tested how different species of monkey reacted to the famed French drop. Laura Baisas ...

Justin Willman reveals how he turns magic skeptics into believers: ‘The trick itself is never enough’ ...

This gadget from 1930 let people ‘talk’ to the dead—with a magic trick How a Popular Science tutorial for building a ‘spiritphone’ tuned into the hype of the Golden Age of Magic. Bill ...

Third, they do the unthinkable: the dove reappears. This structure is foundational to a successful magic trick, but it doesn’t have to involve visual cues.